1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to data processing and, in particular, to a system and method for rendering image based data via a display screen such that each word of a row of text is simultaneously visible.
2. Related Art
It is often desirable for a user to be able to communicate information from various locations. Therefore, portable communications devices have been developed that allow a user to transmit and receive information when the user is at a plurality of possible locations. For example, a user traveling to different cities or other locations can utilize a portable communications device to establish communication with remote communications devices and/or networks.
Most portable communications devices include a data interface that interfaces data between the portable communications device and outside systems or devices. As an example the data interface can be connected to and receive data from a telephone line. The data received by the data interface can then be displayed to the user via a display screen associated with the portable communications device.
To facilitate transportation, most display screens associated with portable communication is devices are relatively small. In fact, many of these display screens are not large enough to display a complete line of text that has been transmitted to the communication is device. Therefore, when the text is defined by ASCII code words, most portable communications devices are designed to insert a line break after the last word in the line that can be displayed on a single row of the display screen. Then, the remainder of the words in the line are displayed on the next row of the display screen. Therefore, a single line of text is displayed on multiple row(s) of the display screen, and the user is able to view each word of the line simultaneously. This process of automatically breaking a line of text to enable simultaneous viewing of each word in the line is commonly referred to as xe2x80x9cword wrapping.xe2x80x9d
However, the data transmitted to the portable communications device is not always defined by ASCII code words. For example, in many situations, image based data (such as facsimile data, for example) is transmitted to the portable communications device. Image based data does not include ASCII code words but instead includes data strings that are associated with each pixel of the image defined by the image based data. The data strings define the color or shade of the pixels of the image.
Since the text of image based data is not defined by ASCII code words, it is difficult for most portable communications devices to identify the words of the text. Therefore, most portable communications devices render image based data without attempting to divide or break lines of text that do not fit on a single row of the display screen. Furthermore, since the display screen is not usually large enough to display a complete line of text, most of the lines of text are not completely displayed to the user at the same time. Consequently, to read a complete line of text, the user is usually required to read a portion of the text that is currently displayed and then to pan the display of the data so that the remainder of the text is visible. As a result, a user is usually required to pan the displayed image back and forth while reading from the display screen.
It is possible to convert the image based data received by the portable communications device into ASCII code words so that the lines of text may be divided and simultaneously displayed to the user. In this regard, an optical character recognition (OCR) device may be used to scan the lines of text and to define ASCII code words through well known techniques. However, OCR techniques are not always accurate, and the conversion of the image based data into ASCII code words may increase the number of errors in the data. Furthermore, utilization of OCR devices in portable communications devices usually increases the size and the power of the portable communications devices to undesirable levels. Therefore, it is not always desirable to convert image based data into ASCII code words before displaying the data to the user in portable communications devices.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry for a system and method of efficiently rendering image based data via a portable communications device such that each word of a line of text is simultaneously visible.
The present invention overcomes the inadequacies and deficiencies of the prior art as discussed hereinbefore. Generally, the present invention provides a system and method for rendering image based data via a display screen such that each word of a row of text is simultaneously visible.
The present invention utilizes a data interface, a display device, and a data manager. The data interface receives image based data that is used by the display device to display an image. The data manager identifies word blocks defined by the received data. The data manager uses the word blocks to define a first row of the image. In this regard, the data manager determines whether images respectively defined by each of the word blocks would be visible if the word blocks are rendered to the first row of the display screen. In response to a determination that an image associated with one of the word blocks would not be visible if the one word block is rendered to the first row of the display screen, the data manager defines a second row and renders the one word block to the second row.
The present invention can also be viewed as providing a method for rendering image based data. Briefly described, the method can be broadly conceptualized by the following steps: receiving image based data; identifying word blocks defined by the image based data; rendering portions of the data defining at least one of the word blocks on a row of a display screen; selecting one of the word blocks; determining whether an image associated with the selected word block fits on the row of the display screen, and rendering a portion of the data defining the selected word block based on the determining step.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to one skilled in the art upon examination of the following detailed description, when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. It is intended that all such features and advantages be included herein within the scope of the present invention and protected by the claims.